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After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

dylanhuang.com

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Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#21

Post by afro88 »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #7
codingdave wrote: post #4

This is not the first story I've heard of a product that isn't quite right, but when deciding where to pivot, fell into AI as the answer and then failed. I've said it before, but it bears repeating - when we figure out what AI is good at and what it is not, we will start treating it as a tool instead of a goal, and our product ideation will stabilize.

Are you saying AI can't rescue a bad product idea by automating things? Like more efficiently doing something nobody wants done isn't a business?

Not OP, but this isn't what Konfig did. They didn't try and rescue a bad idea by automating things. They attempted an AI focussed pivot.

Using AI to automate things to rescue a failing product idea is kind of treating AI as a tool. But AI won't fix a bad product idea.

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#22

Post by asdev »

Thank you for sharing.

>"We then decided to pivot into a vertical B2B SaaS AI product because we felt we could use the breakthroughs in Gen AI to solve previously unsolvable problems, but after going through user interviews and the sales cycle for many different ideas, we haven't been able to find enough traction to make us believe that we were on the right track to build a huge business."

I think we are unfortunately going to see this outcome appear a lot in the near future as the AI bubble pops

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#23

Post by jspiral »

MangoCoffee wrote: post #16
dphuang2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Konfig founder here, 100% agree. I wouldn't recommend anybody to actually try to decipher/deploy Konfig for their own use. I will say that one of our customers was able to deploy our docs platform for themselves while they find a way to deal with the blowout of Konfig shutting down.

>I wouldn't recommend anybody to actually try to decipher/deploy Konfig for their own use. This is interesting. I used to work for a mortgage start-up years ago. They built several products for banks and home builders, such as a mortgage vault and tools for signing mortgage documents online. One condition I still remember was that bank customers required us to put our code in escrow, held by lawyers, in case the comp…

i have been involved in quite a few code escrow agreements but none that were actually used. i'd be curious to hear any stories about cases where that did happen.

in my experience it has just been a way to help business decision makers credibly claim they are managing risk when buying from a startup

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#24

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

mkl wrote: post #20
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #10

Although the code dump could be interesting, this appears to have no license attached. Making it properly open source would make it a lot more useful.

An MIT LICENSE file was added about an hour after your comment.

Fantastic, that's great:)

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#25

Post by gortok »

> While we gained some traction with some startups, we ultimately weren't able to build a hyper-growth business.

>"We then decided to pivot into a vertical B2B SaaS AI product because we felt we could use the breakthroughs in Gen AI to solve previously unsolvable problems, but after going through user interviews and the sales cycle for many different ideas, we haven't been able to find enough traction to make us believe that we were on the right track to build a huge business."

How many wonderful niche products would be around if their owners had tried for a small business instead of a 'huge business' with 'hyper growth'?

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#26

Post by dools »

williamstein wrote: post #5

> “Our main product was an SDK Generator that could take any OpenAPI specification and generate high-quality client libraries in multiple programming languages.” This is something I could really use! Is there a product that does this and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg?

Isn't this entire thing what WSDL and SOAP was promising in the early 2000s?

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#27

Post by zahlman »

asdev wrote: post #22

Thank you for sharing. >"We then decided to pivot into a vertical B2B SaaS AI product because we felt we could use the breakthroughs in Gen AI to solve previously unsolvable problems, but after going through user interviews and the sales cycle for many different ideas, we haven't been able to find enough traction to make us believe that we were on the right track to build a huge business." I think we are unfortunatel…

Am I the only one who would respect the effort more if it had instead been written like so?

>We then decided to try using generative AI in a vertical B2B SaaS product, believing we could solve previously unsolved problems this way. We came up with and pitched multiple ideas, but user feedback was never positive enough to give us confidence that we were on the right track to build a huge business.

As is, my first impression is something like: "Jeez, whoever wrote this is firmly embedded in a niche fly-by-night culture that instinctively turns me off, and now can't psychologically shake free even immediately after crashing and burning".

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#28

Post by ed »

gortok wrote: post #25

> While we gained some traction with some startups, we ultimately weren't able to build a hyper-growth business. >"We then decided to pivot into a vertical B2B SaaS AI product because we felt we could use the breakthroughs in Gen AI to solve previously unsolvable problems, but after going through user interviews and the sales cycle for many different ideas, we haven't been able to find enough traction to make us beli…

There seems to be a subtext here of “see? I told you it was hard!”

Nothing wrong with setting out to build a Google instead of a Basecamp. They’re different kinds of company.

If anything it’s easy to underestimate the risk of building a low-risk business. They’re all hard.

Kudos to Konfig!

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#29

Post by tptacek »

gortok wrote: post #25

> While we gained some traction with some startups, we ultimately weren't able to build a hyper-growth business. >"We then decided to pivot into a vertical B2B SaaS AI product because we felt we could use the breakthroughs in Gen AI to solve previously unsolvable problems, but after going through user interviews and the sales cycle for many different ideas, we haven't been able to find enough traction to make us beli…

If you need funding to cover your monthly nut, you need a plausible path to hyper-growth; the portfolio math doesn't work for investors otherwise. If you set out to build a small-scale sustainable business, and you succeed, you can avoid funding. But if you're pivoting to something entirely new mid-to-late-ways through your company, you've probably burned down most of your reserves.

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#30

Post by Sytten »

gortok wrote: post #25

> While we gained some traction with some startups, we ultimately weren't able to build a hyper-growth business. >"We then decided to pivot into a vertical B2B SaaS AI product because we felt we could use the breakthroughs in Gen AI to solve previously unsolvable problems, but after going through user interviews and the sales cycle for many different ideas, we haven't been able to find enough traction to make us beli…

People say that but as someone trying to actually do that, it is freaking hard to commit to 3-5 years of virtually no salary to maybe get to the same outcome you would have had with a funded business.

You need to sell a lot of 10$/month licenses for it to even viable to a 2-3 people startup in a developed country. There is also the cost of opportunity to consider in that.

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